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103
hut he is also able to maintain a better standard ot'
attendance and so derive greater profit from the education
which is provided.
The fact that dental treatment lessens absenteeism has
long been recognised by progressive commercial firms, and
most well known manufacturers and stores provide dental
clinics for their staffs, Messrs. Lyons, Cadburys,
Selfridges, etc. The manager of one of these firms in an
interview last year stated that his firm provided a dental
clinic for the staff not from any philanthropic motive, but
purely as a matter of business; he considered it economical
to allow an employee half-an-hour's leave to visit the
dentist and thereby save possibly two or three days'
absence from work on account of an acute dental abscess.
Our large insurance companies give their members
dental benefit—again a matter of profitable business—as
thereby their sickness charges are reduced. And so it is
with our dental scheme and the school children.
The average percentage of children in our Bromley
Schools requiring treatment is 55 per cent., and this
figure should be compared with the 85 per cent, requiring
treatment where no dental scheme exists.
Treatment.
Two thousand three hundred and fifty-two school
children and 94 welfare children from the various welfare
centres were treated; the attendance for treatment being
4,101, a record number.
Nitrous oxide gas was administered for extractions on
1,201 occasions and 4,100 teeth were taken out. Two
thousand and seventy-three fillings, either of copper or
porcelain cement, were inserted in permanent teeth, and
295 temporary teeth were also filled. If one compares
these figures with those in the 1933 report it will be seen
that the number of fillings in permanent teeth has
increased from 1,804 in 1933 to 2,073 in 1934, but as
regards the temporarv teeth the number of fillings has
fallen by 122. This of course is intentional; the number
of children in my care increases every year and hence I
cannot give each child as much attention as I could six
years ago. I am forced more and more to concentrate on